The invention relates generally to lotteries and particularly to the emulation of an on-line lottery system by telephone.
Many individual states (or groups of states) have a lottery authority which provides to the public a wagering system (typically known as a state lottery) whereby a person can wager a sum of money on a game in a drawing pool along with thousands of other players with cash prizes to the players who have won according to the rules of the particular game played. There are two major styles of games played, the first typically called "instant" or "scratch" games. Instant or scratch games are those where a player is sold a card by a registered agent of the lottery, which card typically has sections covered with opaque ink which are scratched or rubbed off revealing if the card is a winner and how big a prize, if any, was won. The other style of game is typically called "on-line" and involves special computer terminals which communicate directly with a central computer at the lottery headquarters and offer games with a drawing of winning numbers at known dates and times for each game. This invention concerns itself with the on-line games.
A player who wishes to place a bet with a state's on-line game must first go to a public place where an on-line terminal is located and operated by an agent licensed by the lottery authority. The player decides on which game to play, what type of bet and how much to wager. The bet is then entered into the lottery on-line terminal by the agent using one of two common methods, the keyboard or an optical card reader. The keyboard method requires the agent to enter all the bet information using the on-line terminal's keyboard. The optical card reader method requires the player to mark boxes on a game-specific card with the bet information which is handed to the agent who then inserts it into an optical reader in the on-line terminal. After either method of data entry the agent has the on-line terminal transmit the bet to the central computer of the lottery authority. If the player wishes to, the on-line terminal can randomly select the actual numbers for the bet (typically called a "quick-pick"), but the player must still provide the game, amount wagered and other game-specific information. In all cases a betting ticket is printed by the on-line terminal with the game played, its drawing date, the date and time of the bet, the numbers played, the combination bets played, the wagered amount (possibly of each combination bet), the total amount owed the agent, and a unique transaction number generated by the lottery computer. The agent collects the total amount from the player and gives them the betting ticket. Also, printed on the ticket is usually a bar code which can be read by an optical reader in the on-line terminal used to cash winning tickets. The printed ticket is the only record the player has of the bet so it must be printed accurately. If it does not get printed the agent must take corrective action.
All lottery games have a specified fixed price per unit bet (typically $0.25 or $1.00) with the option of the player purchasing multiple bet units on a single bet ticket. The lottery system also has a maximum bet amount on a single bet ticket, but a player can purchase multiple bet tickets if so desired. Each bet unit purchased for a game which wins is entitled to an equal share of the prize pool allocated for that type of win.
There are many different games provided by state lotteries and they generally fall into two major categories, each with many variations, typically called "numbers" type games and "lotto" type games.
Numbers type games typically require the player to select a sequence of (typically 3 or 4) numbers from 0 to 9 (although some games use 1 to 13 with a playing card motif). The game has a drawing of (typically 3 or 4) numbers at a regular date and time and the players can collect prizes if their numbers match the drawn numbers according to the type of bet. There are many varieties of bets allowed including matching subsets of the drawn numbers and allowing "any" or "exact" order of the digits. A player can typically purchase a combination of bet types for a single set of selected numbers with varying numbers of bet units purchased for each bet type. For example, a player can pick 1822 and decide that the 4 digits must match in exact order, the first three can match in any order and the last 2 must match in exact order. If the state's picks for that drawing are 8122, the player wins the first three any order bet, the last two exact order bet and loses the all four exact order bet. The cash prize amount for a type of bet depends on the odds of a match for that type of bet and the total pool of money wagered on that type of bet. The odds for a 4 number (each number is from 0 through 9) bet in exact order is 1 in 10,000 with a typical payout of 5,000 bet units per unit bet.
Lotto type games typically require the player to select a unique subset of a range of numbers such as 5 unique numbers from 1 to 35. The drawing consists of the state picking 5 unique numbers and a player wins if their picks match a subset of drawn picks. For example, if the state draws the numbers 3, 9, 14, 24, and 32 and the player picks 5, 9, 13, 24 and 32, the bet matches 3 out of the 5 drawn numbers and the player wins the prize for matching 3 out of 5. The odds of getting 5 out of 5 matches are very high (in this case 1 out of 324,632), so the prize is usually very large, with some games adding to the jackpot pool the jackpot pool of the previous drawing that had no jackpot winners, typically called "rolling over the jackpot," until there is a winner who wins the entire accumulated jackpot.
For each game, at some predetermined date and time, the state lottery conducts a drawing of the winning numbers. This is typically done via mechanical means (such as numbered balls selected from a rotating cage). In all states the results of the drawing are made public with many local media outlets reporting the winning numbers and the prize amounts.
If a player believes that his or her lottery ticket is a winning ticket, he or she takes the ticket to an on-line lottery agent and asks that it be processed. Typically, the ticket is read by an optical reader or its transaction identification number can be entered manually on the keyboard and then the information is transmitted to the lottery computer. If the bet ticket is not a winner the on-line terminal displays an appropriate message and the agent tells the player that the bet did not win. If the ticket is a winning ticket, then the on-line terminal will print out a cash or claim ticket depending on the size of the cash prize. If it is a small cash prize (typically under $600) then the lottery agent pays the holder of the bet ticket the amount printed on the cash ticket. The winning bet ticket and the cash ticket are kept by the agent and are sent to the lottery at a later date. If it is a large cash prize (typically $600 or greater) a claim ticket is printed and the agent fills out a claim form and at a later date sends that with the winning bet ticket and the claim ticket to the state lottery, which will then send the cash prize to the player. The printed cash or claim ticket is the only record the agent has of the transaction, so it must be printed accurately. If it does not get printed the agent must take corrective action. If the prize for the winning ticket is a free play, the player is allowed to immediately make another play of the same game as the winning play without paying the agent for the play.
Lottery on-line terminals are programmed to execute a wide range of transactions on behalf of the agent. The transactions fall into several categories. Bet transactions cover all the various bets for all the games supported by the lottery. Cash transactions include cashing a winning bet ticket and inquiring the status of a bet ticket. Accounting transactions return to the agent the sales figures for various time periods. Diagnostic transactions test the printer, communications, keyboard, display, etc. of the on-line terminal. Message transactions print out messages directed to all agents or just one agent. Error recovery transactions include finding out the last transaction (bet, cash or cancel) that the lottery accepted and cancelling previous bet transactions.
The licensed agent operates the lottery on-line terminal for the player and decides which transactions to perform on the on-line terminal and in which order to perform them. The agent can only perform one transaction at a time which must go to completion or be aborted before another transaction can be started. To simplify the operation, the most common transactions of placing bets and cashing winning bets can have their data read by optical readers from the mark-sense betting cards and the bar codes printed on the bet tickets. In case a card or ticket cannot be read the agent can manually enter the information on the keyboard and perform the transaction. There are also many other transactions that can only be performed manually by the agent. These include signing on at the beginning of the day, canceling bets, obtaining sales and accounting information, obtaining the winning plays and the prize amounts, etc. The agent also has to handle the exceptional conditions which include aborted transactions, no ticket being printed, and requesting agent-specific messages from the lottery computer. If there is a major failure in the on-line terminal or the lottery system, the player does not pay for the play unless a bet ticket is printed. If no ticket was printed the agent will verify whether the play was accepted by the lottery computer and, if so, cancel that play. The agent may also run diagnostic transactions and decide that the on-line terminal may need maintenance or repairs.
The agent is trained to handle the exceptional conditions by using standard procedures which specify which transactions to execute in order to keep the on-line terminal operating properly. In the event of a ticket not printing (for either a bet or a cash transaction), the agent performs a "get last transaction" transaction. This will print on a "not for sale" ticket the information describing the last transaction accepted by the lottery computer for this on-line terminal. The agent compares that information with the information entered but for which no ticket was printed. If the information matches, then the lottery accepted the transaction and since there was no ticket, the agent cancels that transaction using the transaction identification number printed on the last transaction slip. The agent then reenters (or uses the optical reader to reenter) the originally requested transaction and should get a proper ticket printed. The operation of the on-line terminal then proceeds normally. Another case occurs when the lottery computer sends a message to a specific agent. The on-line terminal, when it gets a command that a message is waiting to be read, will not accept any other transactions but a "get specific message" transaction. The agent performs the "get specific message" transaction, the message is printed on the ticket and operation of the on-line terminal proceeds normally.
State lottery computer systems, in order to lower communication costs, use dedicated leased telephone lines which are multidropped to a group of lottery on-line terminals (typically a maximum of about 30). A multidropped line means that a group of on-line terminals share a single communications port on the lottery computer. The lottery computer controls and communicates with the on-line terminals using a polled half-duplex protocol. The protocol works by giving each on-line terminal on a multidropped line a unique number which the lottery computer uses to address the individual on-line terminals. The lottery computer asks (polls) each on-line terminal in sequence if it has a transaction to execute. All the lottery on-line terminals listen to this poll but only the addressed on-line terminal responds, hence the half duplex nature of the protocol, whereby data is transmitted on the communication line in only one direction at a time. If the on-line terminal has no transaction pending it sends an idle response back to the computer. If it has a pending transaction, it sends it. When the transaction is completed, the computer polls the next on-line terminal. The protocol defines the various formats of the data transmitted, the handshaking between the computer and the on-line terminal and an error detection and recovery mechanism. In the event of detected errors in transmission, the protocol specifies how to retransmit the messages. If the transaction has too many detected errors or the protocol cannot recover from an exceptional condition, an abort occurs, which resets the handshake to the idle state and requires the agent to manually assess the situation and to optionally retry the transaction. The protocol does not define how to recover from aborted transactions or exceptional conditions. It only defines the individual transactions used by an agent to recover and the agent must decide in what sequence to perform those transactions.
Lottery players who wish to play an on-line game must go to a public location with a lottery on-line terminal during business hours, possibly wait in a line if the store is busy or many people are playing the lottery, and have cash on hand to pay the agent for the bet. These restrictions make it hard for people to bet if there is no nearby location with a lottery on-line terminal, if they cannot arrive there before the current drawing is closed, if they have no cash on hand, if the location is closed or if they wish to play during the time (typically overnight) that the lottery computer is scheduled to be shut down or if they wish to play a game at a time when the lottery on-line terminal is available for other games but the game they wish to play is "closed." There are also players who like to bet so-called "hunches" when they have one without having to travel to a lottery agent.
State lotteries are interested in increasing the volume of bets made and not increasing their expenses in handling these additional bets. A way to solve the restrictions listed above is to allow bets by touch-tone telephone.
It is an object of the invention to implement a lottery by telephone service which communicates to the lottery central computer by using the communication lines and protocol of the standard lottery on-line terminals.
It is another object of this invention to provide a lottery by telephone service to a state's existing lottery system via emulation of the existing communications protocol between the on-line terminals and the lottery computer, without any additional hardware or software design or changes on the part of the lottery.
It is also an object of this invention to execute a subset of the lottery on-line terminal's transactions, and to emulate the lottery on-line terminal's communications protocol so that it can provide to callers the ability to place bets and cash winning bets, and to execute those transactions necessary to recover from exceptional conditions. The invention also automatically executes the sequence of transactions needed to recover that the lottery agent would perform manually.
It is an object of this invention to provide callers 24 hour a day availability to place bets with the lottery even though the lottery may only provide limited hours of operation, by accepting off-hours bets, storing them and transmitting them to the lottery at the next period of normal lottery operations.
It is an object of the invention to provide telephone access to callers so they can find out if and what they have won from the lottery, and to allow any free plays won to be made immediately, and for cash prize winners to have their winnings or claim forms mailed to them.
It is an object of the invention to provide telephone access to callers so that they can make inquiries regarding their previous plays, status of pending claims or cash prizes and have these questions answered automatically or by customer service personnel.